‘Truth’ lures writer-director Lurie

Political drama parallels Plame case

Rod Lurie will next direct his script “Nothing but the Truth,” a drama about a D.C.-based female newspaper reporter who outs a CIA agent and is imprisoned for refusing to reveal her source.

Cast is mobilizing for an October production start. Talks are under way for Kate Beckinsale to play the journalist, Matt Dillon the prosecutor, Vera Farmiga the CIA agent, Edie Falco (in her first role since “The Sopranos”) the editor of the newspaper that published the story and Alan Alda the attorney who tries to free the reporter from jail.

Marc Frydman will produce and the Yari Film Group will finance. Bob Yari bought the spec script after working with Lurie on the Josh Hartnett-Samuel L. Jackson starrer “Resurrecting the Champ,” which the Yari Film Group releases next month.

“Nothing but the Truth” parallels the case of Valerie Plame, whose status as a CIA agent was exposed in the media after her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson, wrote a New York Times op-ed piece charging the Bush administration with manipulating intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq.

Former New York Times reporter Judith Miller went to jail to protect her sources, and Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was convicted of perjury, making false statements to federal investigators and obstruction of justice. President Bush commuted his 30-month jail sentence.

Lurie, who tackled D.C. politics with his breakthrough film “The Contender,” aims to start his pic well ahead of a WB project that will be told from the vantage point of Plame and Wilson.

Jez and John Butterworth are already scripting the Warner pic and Akiva Goldsman and Jerry and Janet Zucker are producing.